China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower: The Last Stand Against the Censorship Regime in the Communist Party

It’s a gathering of more than 2,000 top party officials to choose the next iteration of leaders, including the next head of the Communist party. The party congress’ aim is to signal the opposite of democratic consensus by showing that the party’s leader now, which is XI Jinping, has absolute control over all levers of power. There is a From afar, it is clear that the party is under a single man’s control. Dissent within China is at a minimum, in large thanks to formidable set of digital surveillance and informational controls. Much of the population’s every movement remains controlled through zero-Covid measures. The network of media outlets, NGOs, law firms has been decimated by an ongoing purge of civil society. Despite a few internal party tensions, it is still widely believed that Xi will appoint his loyalists into power, and thus stay locked on a political agenda of national rejuvenation. The books challenge the perception of permanent Chinese party state. China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower is a book written by Frank Diktter which depicts how the party has retained control even after the economic downturn and environmental pollution that followed Mao.

It was widely accepted at the policymakers level that if a rich China were to gain influence outside it would be felt from Western Europe to South America to East Africa. Though we understood that this influence could at times be heavy-handed, there was little political will to curb it. China seemed to offer a unique model of capitalist dynamism and authoritarian efficacy. Decisions were made; things got done: What a contrast with the increasingly sclerotic free world.

Within weeks, he launched the most brutal and long-lasting “war on graft” the party had ever seen. The sweeping purges targeted not only the corrupt, but also Xi’s political enemies, including powerful leaders who were accused of plotting a coup with Bo to seize power.

“A high-profile purge of Hu at a critical juncture like the 20th Party Congress shows the presence of dissent, and the notion that Xi is at least ‘challengeable,’” he said. It is not great for Xi to have a different image of invincibility.

Part of the reason is the potency of the nationalist mission, which appeals to Chinese citizens far more than the cold logic of Marxism-Leninism. The Beijing Winter Olympics last February were a time of patriotism and pride, and there were feelings of wounded anger when people blamed China for the swine flu. Even Chinese who may be averse to Communist Party rule still love their country.

To be sure, many Chinese are proud of their country’s achievements. China’s military was modernized, it became a leader in next generation technology and its global influence was greatly increased. It is trying to become the largest navy on Earth, and making itself feel like an emerging superpower.

Across Tibetan villages in southwest China, Communist Party officials have been spreading the top leader Xi Jinping’s gospel of national unity: that every ethnic group must fuse into one indivisible China with a shared heritage dating back over 5,000 years.

In the Tibetan region of Ganzi, many officials have been partnering with families in order to give out gifts of food, cooking oil, and pictures of Mr. Xi in an effort to spread his message.

“In the future I’ll be a member of your family, too,” Shen Yang, the Communist Party secretary of Ganzi, called Kardze in Tibetan, told one household, according to a local newspaper.

Some would say he is hostile toward America because of his belief in China’s return to the center of the world stage. Biden, meanwhile, has grown increasingly weary of China’s authoritarian turn under Xi, and has framed the rivalry between the two countries as a battle between autocracy and democracy.

The document, required by Congress, comes 21 months into Biden’s term. The broad contours of the strategy have been in evidence over the course of the President’s tenure, including a focus on rebuilding global partnerships and countering China and Russia.

Speaking to reporters, Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the strategy made clear the White House wasn’t viewing the world “solely through the prism of strategic competition.”

He said that they will not leave their future vulnerable to the whims of those who don’t share their vision for a free, open, prosperous and secure world. “As the world continues to navigate the lingering impacts of the pandemic and global economic uncertainty, there is no nation better positioned to lead with strength and purpose than the United States of America.”

Russia is a threat to the free and open international system due to it’s war of aggression againstUkraine, as shown in the document. China is the sole competitor with both intent and power to change the direction of the international order.

If we lose the time this decade we will not be able to keep pace with, that is critical for defining the terms of competition, particular with the People’s Republic of China.

China appeared to be an unstoppable rising power. The economy of the country has recently overtaken that of Japan and is basking in the afterglow of the Beijing Olympics.

But deep within the high walls of Zhongnanhai, the leadership compound where Xi spent time as a child visiting his late father Xi Zhongxun, a liberal-minded vice premier, China’s new leader saw a country in crisis.

The emperors of those dynasties rebuilt parts of the Great Wall, but they did not reverse their country’s decline. Their tools were not comparable to the high-tech ones held by China’s current ruler. Xi seems confident that his “walls” – among other things – will help him realize his oft-cited ultimate goal: the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

The comments before the meeting were made by the president, which said that a leader should think about where to lead his country. He should think about and know how to get along with other countries in the world, as an indication of his new responsibility with China now a major world power. But they could also be read as the kind of lecture that Washington once delivered to Chinese leaders that Xi is now taking the opportunity to throw back at the US.

During the past five years, Sun said he had largely focused on getting his third term, and part of that was convincing his party to remove the term limit. His political agenda is likely to change to include more global issues.

The new leader said that the party had many challenges and that there were some pressing problems that needed to be solved.

Xi also ramped up the party’s control of the economy, especially its once-vibrant private sector. His sweeping regulatory crackdown brought tycoons to heel and wiped out trillions of dollars of market value from Chinese firms.

In the online sphere, extensive censorship and real-life retaliation tamed social media. It became an amplifier for propaganda and a breeding ground for nationalism instead of being a catalyst for social and political reforms.

Xi’s Fphobia of Chaos: A Call to End the Soviet Union and the Decay of Communist Party Rulers

Local health workers are using online videos to demonstrate their skills for testing fruits, animals and shoes for Covid without any sound scientific basis. The most deaths in China in September were 27 people who were killed when the bus they were on crashed. Still, officials nationwide have doubled down on enforcing draconian rules, especially ahead of the party congress, helped by the world’s most sophisticated surveillance technologies.

“Arguably, his emphasis on party authority, and stopping individuals who disagree with the party from criticizing (it), is a result of his phobia of chaos because of what he saw happened to himself, his mother, his father and siblings,” said Joseph Torigian, an expert on Chinese politics at American University and author of an upcoming biography on the elder Xi.

He believed that to achieve political order, you needed to have a strong leader and party not a system that would allow people to hurt other people.

Why did the soviet union cease to exist? Why did the Communist Party fall apart? An important reason was that their ideals and beliefs had been shaken,” Xi told senior officials in a speech months after taking the helm of the party.

In recent years, American measures to counter China’s rising influence has only reinforced its sense of being under siege from Western powers, McGregor said.

Xi had shown disdain for foreign criticism of China while he was a leader-in-waiting. When he was a vice-president in 2009, Xi told members of the Chinese community in Mexico that foreigners with full bellies had nothing better to do than point fingers at them. China doesn’t export revolution, hunger or poverty. China doesn’t cause headaches. Just what else do you want?”

The most pointed warning to the West came when he presided over a grand celebration for the party’s 100th anniversary. Standing on top of Tiananmen, or the Gate of Heavenly Peace, the towering entrance to the Forbidden City palace of imperial China, Xi declared the Chinese nation will no longer be “bullied, oppressed or subjugated” by foreign powers. “Anyone who dares to try, will find their heads bashed bloody against a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people,” he said to thundering applause from the crowd.

Since coming to power, Xi has repeatedly warned against the “infiltration” of Western values such as democracy, press freedom and judicial independence. He has banned all foreign NGOs, churches, Western movies and textbooks because they are seen as vehicles for foreign influence.

The upcoming meeting – the first in-person encounter between Biden and Xi since the US President took office – comes at a crucial time for both leaders. After last month’s Communist Party Congress, which consolidated his power, the strongest leader in China since Mao is now Xi.

It’s not known how many countries are willing to join that perspective. Views of China have grown more negative during Xi’s decade in power across many advanced economies, and in some, unfavorable views reached record highs in recent years.

Pelosi’s visit and the ensuing furor from China highlighted concerns within Biden’s administration over Beijing’s designs on Taiwan. Even before the speaker touched down in Taipei in August, Beijing had stepped up its rhetoric and aggressive actions toward the island, including sending warplanes into Taiwan’s self-declared air defense identification zone several times.

There is a difficult environment, along with the toll of zero- Covid and the economic challenges, that pose a challenge to the young leader.

Mao may have founded Communist China. But according to the party’s narrative, it is Xi who will lead the country to its rebirth as the new global superpower. His success will have a huge impact on the world.

During China’s National Day holiday in October, many expatriate friends and I took our young children, who are of mixed races, to the Great Wall on the outskirts of Beijing.

A few locals walked past us as we ascended a restored but deserted section of the ancient landmark. One of our kids exclaimed, “WOW foreigners!” With Covid? Get away from them. The group quickened their pace, while the adults remained quiet.

The Great Wall, a top tourist attraction that normally draws throngs of visitors during holidays, stood nearly empty when we went thanks to Xi’s insistence – three years into the global pandemic – on a policy of zero tolerance for Covid infections while the rest of the world has mostly moved on and re-opened.

Many foreigners who once call the country home have left since March 2020 when China shut its borders to international travelers.

With the highly contagious Omicron variant raging through parts of the country, authorities had discouraged domestic travel ahead of National Day holiday. They are also sticking to a strictQuarantine and mass testing, which often locks down entire cities over a few cases.

Tourism spending plummeted during the Golden Week as well as during the last normal year, with just less than half of the amount spent in the last normal year.

Xi, the Great Wall, and the Future: China’s Rise and Fall in a Turbulent, Hostile World

The local child said something about the Great Wall. Adults in powerful positions use the blame the foreigners sentiment to their advantage when domestic pressure mounts.

A history paper released recently by a government-run research institute has gone viral as it, like Xi, upended a long-held consensus. Rather than condemn the isolationist policy adopted by China’s last two imperial dynasties as one of the reasons of their backward turn and eventually collapse, the authors defended their necessity to protect national sovereignty and security.

On Sunday, he presented himself to a congress of China’s ruling elite as the leader whose policies saved the nation from the ravages of the Pandemic and who now is focused on securing China’s rise.

He praise was accompanied by a warning that the nation needed to unite behind the party because of the world that he described as becoming turbulent and hostile. And though he did not mention the United States by name, his distrust of the world’s other great power was an unmistakable backdrop to that exhortation.

“Be mindful of dangers in the midst of peace,” Mr. Xi said. “Get the house in good repair before rain comes, and prepare to undergo the major tests of high winds and waves, and even perilous, stormy seas.”

The 20th Party’s General Secretary, Ilham Tohti, and Beijing’s Observed Security, Economic Progress, and the Human Rights Problem

The professor helped train thousands of high-ranking people in the party. A Chinese economist will win the top economics prize next year. A young historian will teach a class about Chinese history in sensitive times like the Cultural Revolution.

Mr. Xi’s speech at the opening of the 20th party congress on Sunday made it clearer than ever that China is moving in the opposite direction from liberalization. Obsessed with national security, he is more focused on quashing all ideological and geopolitical challenges than on reform and opening up, the policies that brought China out of poverty.

In other news from China, the government said it was delaying indefinitely the release of economic data that had been expected to show continued lackluster performance.

A decade ago, when he took over the helm of China, he smiled with joy as he watched more than 2,000 delegates in front of him.

The scholar was paying close attention. He was initially happy to see Xi become the party’s general secretary.

He sounded excited. He’s like, I think it will change now. Things are going to get better,’” says the scholar’s daughter, Jewher Ilham, who lives in the United States.

Ilham Tohti, 53 this month, is a member of the Uyghur ethnic group, which calls Xinjiang home. He made a name for himself as an outspoken activist for Uyghur rights and the Uyghur language and culture.

By some estimates, a million or more people would eventually be detained. The U.S. has referred to it as genocide. The UN’s top human rights official believes that there may be crimes against humanity in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang. China does not deny any wrongdoing.

Vis and his neighbours: From the Lockdown to the Revival of a Yoga Business, or How Beijing Did Xi Jinping 10 Years

But it comes with a cost. The impact on the economy has been a major one, with increased uncertainty smothering consumer confidence and making business planning almost impossible.

Vis and his neighbours wrote a statement of protest. They played it in public for everyone to hear.

The lockdown started in early spring. Since it was lifted in June, Vis has pieced his yoga business back together for the most part. He says it left a scar on everyone.

It could happen a second time if it happened once. “In China there’s a saying: If you’re bitten by a snake, you’ll be afraid of coiled rope for a decade.”

During the turbulent 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, a man named Zhang was sent to the northwestern Chinese countryside to work nearby the area where the man named Xi worked as a youth. The man says he liked the style of the man.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/18/1127852397/china-xi-jinping-10-years-perspectives

The “One country, two systems” model for Hong Kong’s democracy and the “umbrella” protest: The “big picture” of Beijing after Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan

Hong Kong has a situation like that. The people in the former British colony enjoyed freedom of speech, and a vibrant pro-democracy movement.

In 2014, street protests erupted in the city in what became known as the “Umbrella Movement” — openly calling for the right to directly elect the city’s leaders.

Five years later, a proposed extradition law sparked fresh demonstrations. Kwong — who was getting her master’s degree in Germany — flew home to join them.

In 2020 Beijing took a step that would make Hong Kong a different place. The arrests that followed decimated Hong Kong’s democracy movement.

Xi has not blinked. At the opening session of the party congress in Beijing on Sunday, he said the “one country, two systems” model for running Hong Kong is a “great innovation” and that China has successfully overcome “grave challenges to its national security” in the territory.

In 1997 the territory was promised a high degree of autonomy under the agreement that led to its return to China. Critics say China hasn’t lived up to its word.

“Basically, my life has, like, gone to pieces because of Xi Jinping,” she said. “I lost my home. I lost a lot of my friends. I will never set foot in Hong Kong again.

These were just four people with four very different experiences under Xi. But in a country of 1.4 billion people, it is impossible to capture the national mood.

The Communist Party made a wager 10 years ago — that a tougher leader with an unapologetic approach was necessary to keep the party in power and make China stronger.

Experts say that the coordination of military branches during exercises the PLA held in response to Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan has made progress in this regard.

Taiwan as a possible new power plant for China in the post-Russian War-Game: China’s 20th Party Congress Addresses Ukraine

Doing so is not easy, as Russia’s experience in Ukraine shows. Throughout the war of Russian troops without air cover, proper supplies or units to block a Ukrainian offensive, there have been many accounts.

What should be even more worrying for Xi, as he prepares to secure an expected third term as both party leader and supreme commander of the Chinese military at this week’s 20th Party Congress, is that many analysts see parallels between the problems dogging Moscow in Ukraine and the potential weak spots that remain in the PLA.

Taiwan lies fewer than 110 miles (177 kilometers) off the coast of China. For more than 70 years the two sides have been governed separately, but that hasn’t stopped China’s ruling Communist Party from claiming the island as its own – despite having never controlled it.

Analysts say that would require hundreds of thousands of soldiers in what would be the largest amphibious operation since the Allies stormed ashore at Normandy in German-occupied France in World War II.

The new aircraft carrier and several other ships are seen by some as the world’s most powerful surface ships and have cost a lot.

The professor of strategic studies at the University of St.ANDREWS in Scotland believes that Taiwan has a cheap alternative to counter Russia, which is small, land-based anti-ship missiles.

China also faces a significant challenge in making sure all the different parts of its now formidable fighting forces pull in the same direction – another issue that has dogged Russia in Ukraine.

A unified command structures in which naval,air, army and rocket units work together is still in its early stages.

Xi’s work report on Sunday cited the need to “improve the command system for joint operations” and enhance the PLA’s “systems and capacity for reconnaissance and early warning, joint strikes, battlefield support, and integrated logistics support.”

In the days following the visit the PLA’s navy war-gamed a blockade of Taiwan, its rocket force sent missiles over the main island and its air force flew jets repeatedly into Taipei’s Air Defense Identification Zone.

Donald Xi, the Army’s Chief Adviser, and a Demonstration of China’s Resilient Cold War

Four of the top six officers of China’s Central Military Commission (CMC) have reached the normal retirement age of 68 and are being replaced as Xi heads into his third term, according to Joel Wuthnow, a senior research fellow at the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at the US National Defense University.

What’s more, the four departing officers were in charge of the PLA’s actual fighting forces, while the two remaining ones come from the military’s political ranks, Wuthnow wrote for the Jamestown Foundation’s China Brief last month.

Analysts have warned that it could be a smokescreen to depict something more sinister than the invasion of Ukraine by the Russians.

The missile launched by the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army on August 4, 2022, was meant to hit designated maritime areas in the east of Taiwan.

However, Chinese state media have done their best to play the order down, saying it could cover actions such as participating in international peacekeeping operations or providing disaster relief.

The outlines want to protect people and property, guard national sovereignty, and safeguard world peace and regional stability, as reported by the Xinhua news service.

He wrote in July that the new guidelines on non-war operations would be another step away from the peaceful rise that China once promised to the world.

Xi has ramped up China’s ambitions for reducing carbon emissions and slowing global warming. He continued those goals this week in grandiose language. (“We must uphold and act on the principle that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets.”) But he has also allied himself with a leader whose actions are threatening to throw the global climate fight in reverse: President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

This summer, China sweltered through more than two months of record-high temperatures, the country’s most prolonged heat wave since modern records began in 1961. The river was dried to a trickle. Factories halted production to reduce the burden on power grids. Extreme highs could become a new normal, according to Chen Lijuan, the government’s chief forecaster.

He said that the cooling of tensions between China and the US was apparent by the restart of direct dialogue between the Chinese and US leaders.

It’s not easy to focus resources on achieving positive priorities and outcomes when you have a tendency to counter each potential threat with another, which fuel overextension in foreign lands. In the United States, escalated competition could exacerbate domestic divisions and undermine democracy. More than 60 percent of Chinese-born scientists working in the US consider leaving the country due to increased bigotry and anti- Asian violence, according to a new study.

Please accept my country’s sincerest gratitude as you embark on your third term as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. We believe that one day you will be recognized as a great blessing to the United States and other free nations, even though it isn’t obvious at the moment.

The leader who founded the People’s Republic of China has had a third term. The senior fellow and co-director of the East Asia Program at the Stimson Center, Yun Sun, believes that China is moving into a new era.

Although domestic reform and economic policy are important parts of China’s economy, Sun said this is an area that Xi is going to prevail in. “These people are going to operationalize his vision and his strategy with even more momentum and more precision.”

Sun said she expects the “political confidants” and “political loyalists” of Xi to be appointed to key positions involving national security and foreign policy to help enact his vision.

Other key topics on the agenda include Russia’s war in Ukraine – another significant point of tension, as well as areas where the US hopes to cooperate with China – such as North Korea’s ongoing provocations and climate change.

Li said that Beijing isn’t solely focused on preventing independence in Taiwan anymore, but rather is focused on reunification.

But that perception — and the resulting actions from the U.S., such as high-level congressional visits from the likes of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — has led to something of a catch-22 situation, Li said.

“You get this tit-for-tat retaliation where there’s not a lot of trust … and sort of a back and forth where the U.S. views its actions as responsive to China’s actions, [and] China views its actions as a response to the U.S.’s actions,” Li said.

Meanwhile, the tech industry has become a larger priority for China, especially as the country moves toward the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” by the centennial of the People’s Republic of China in 2049, in which Xi aims to make China a modern socialist country.

As this has become more of a focus, China has worked to bolster its domestic research and innovation capacity, Li said, and that has then caused those in the U.S. to talk about decoupling from China when it comes to the technology and the supply chains that support it.

Li said that the situation is basically an impasse. Progress doesn’t mean it can’t happen and that it will test both countries for years to come.

The Communist Party’s General Secretary Explains the Exit from the House of Delegate Hu Gewirtz after the January 11 General Reelection Campaign

The interesting character of the general secretary of the party during the tumultuous 1980s is focused on by Gewirtz. Zhao and sympathetic officials argued successfully for China to accelerate international trade, to import — or outright steal — foreign ideas and technology, and to disassociate the party with the blemished legacy of Chairman Mao Zedong.

The party will prevail, once again, according to Precedent, though the odds seem to be against it at the congress. There was a challenge for the Communist Party to overcome without giving up its monopoly over power and control over the means of production. It seemed like a dead end.

Images of two men kicking Hu out of his seat and moving him to the exit caused a huge uproar in the world, and many thought that Hu might have been the victim of a power play.

Tuesday’s footage has fueled fervent speculation about what was in the document and why Hu was not allowed to see it – and left observers divided over what sparked his exit.

The footage, which was released by Channel NewsAsia on Tuesday, shows Hu being prevented from seeing official documents in front of him in a series of high-level exchanges between senior party leaders.

It shows Li Zhanshu, the party’s outgoing number-three official, who is sitting next to Hu at the front table on stage, take the documents from Hu’s hand and place them under a red folder. When Hu reaches for the documents, Li pulls them away.

Xi, who is sat on Hu’s other side, glances at the exchanges and summons a senior aide to whom he speaks briefly. Moments later, a second aide hurries over, receives an instruction from Xi, then speaks to an apparently nonplussed Hu.

The Xinhua-Cheng-Yan Decay into the First Day of the China National Congress: No Tweet from Hu or Facebook

None of the footage – either that released on Saturday or Tuesday – has been broadcast in China. The incident has not been reported in Chinese language media or on Chinese social media, where conversations about senior leaders are extremely restricted.

Late on Saturday night, China’s official Xinhua news agency tweeted in English that Hu “insisted on attending” the closing ceremony despite his poor health and was escorted out after feeling unwell. However, within China, where Twitter is blocked, the incident was not mentioned.

On Weibo, censors even restricted the search results for vague keywords such as “escorted away” or “leaving the meeting,” in an apparent effort to prevent users from making veiled references to the incident, according to Eric Liu, a censorship analyst with China Digital Times.

Meanwhile, gone with Hu are the many hallmarks that had defined his decade in power during which he presided over a period of double-digit economic growth and comparative openness.

Hu was linked to the Communist Youth League, a once powerful group that has lost its influence due to the influence of other party factions and elders.

The new video has been interpreted by some as a sign of Hu’s supposed displeasure with the outcome of the Congress, which saw Xi consolidate his power by stacking the new leadership team with his loyal allies and proteges.

Premier Li Keqiang and Wang Yang, head of China’s top advisory body, both retired from the party’s supreme Politburo Standing Committee, despite being one year below the unofficial retirement age of 68. Both Li and Wang are seen as closer to Hu’s sphere of influence.

In an even more surprising revelation on Sunday, Vice Premier Hu Chunhua, another protege of the elder Hu (the two are not related), was dropped from the new 24-member Politburo. Hu is no longer seen as a rising star being groomed for the top leadership.

A public purge at the closing of the congress is not likely, according to a political scientist at the Australian National University.

If Xi had wanted to purge Hu to prevent the former leader from raising objections in public, he would have done so before foreign press were allowed into the auditorium, Sung said.

The coldness of the other leaders on the stage was also hit by many observers. Few showed any concern for Hu, and many avoided looking in his direction.

“They try to be like a machine in the party machinery, hiding their personal emotions and characteristics, so they can rise through the party.”

Hu rubbed the shoulder of Li who nodded and turned to watch him walk away. Wang sat upright next to Li, and looked forward in a frozen state.

Hu didn’t look toward the party elder as he passed by. His arms were folded across his chest, and he looked straight ahead.

But even if the real reason for the elder Hu’s departure never becomes clear, the incident has nevertheless sent an unequivocal message about Xi’s absolute hold on power, analysts say.

Tsang at the University of London said that Hu’s departure showed that the once powerful Communist Youth League had been reduced to insignificance.

“With no successor in sight, and the previous leader humiliated, Xi had projected to the party that…no one in the party should look over his shoulder for another leader, be him the future or the past leader,” Tsang said.

A Two-Day US-Chinese Strategy for Building a Floor for the Dialogue Between America and China — After the Xi-Biden Summit

But to the surprise of many, the meeting featured televised images of smiling officials, handshakes, and a commitment to reopening lines of communication on urgent global issues. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who had sparred with his Chinese counterparts at the 2021 summit in Alaska, is now expected to visit China next year.

They continued to have in-person encounters with the president after he took power. The last time they met face to face was in 2015, during Xi’s first state visit to the US as China’s top leader.

Today, trust is running low, the rhetoric is increasingly antagonistic and disputes continue to fester in areas including trade, technology, security and ideology.

“There’s not going to be a joint statement of any sort here. A senior US official said this week that this isn’t a meeting that is being driven by deliverables. The president believes it’s crucial to build a floor for the relationship and ensure that there are rules that are fair to our competitors.

The US and China have been moving closer for years despite their differences even after 10 years of getting to know one another.

Kim said that the meeting can use more than just airing grievances. Biden and XI made a joint declaration that they oppose the threat or use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine and the Korean Peninsula, as well as restarting working level exchanges on areas of common interest such as climate change and counter-narcotics.

Biden told a news conference on Wednesday that he wants to lay out what each of the “red lines” are when he sits down with the Chinese president.

“Those who play with fire will perish by it. It is hoped that the U.S. will be clear-eyed about this,” Xi warned Biden over the summer, when the two leaders met virtually.

What Will the US and China Tell Us About Beijing When Pelosi Goes to Taiwan? — An Analysis of Beijing’s Decline during October’s Reunification

And in October, the Communist Party chief again reiterated that China’s preference would be for “peaceful reunification” but repeated that the use of force remains an option.

That trip, which the Biden administration quietly sought to dissuade Pelosi from taking, prompted a steep decline in relations between the US and China. Beijing launched military drills around the island and closed all communication with the US in order to prevent conflict.

Biden made repeated statements on the American obligation to defend Taiwan in case of Chinese invasion, but it did little to lower the temperature. It happened in September during an interview with CBS.

“I think the Biden administration will be less flexible or maneuverable” on China, says Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Nanjing University.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has said he would like to visit Taiwan if he becomes majority leader. Such a move could be disastrous, warns another Chinese expert on international relations.

“When Pelosi went, the Chinese lost face. “Maybe they will take action next time,” says a Chinese expert who is not authorized by his university to speak to the media.

Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology in the Light of Beijing’s Pelosi’s Visit to the United States

“Throughout the Cold War, there were a series of really tough export controls imposed on the Soviet Union by the U.S.,” says Chris Miller, author of the recently published Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology. There is a lot of similarity to be honest.

Last month, the U.S. imposed dramatic export bans on certain advanced semiconductor technology — trade sanctions explicitly designed to hobble critical technology sectors like military modernization and artificial intelligence that are important to China.

In China’s case, enforcing the restrictions could be difficult, though. These little chips are easy to smuggle across borders. Also, total enforcement would require other countries that are part of the complex semiconductors supply chain to be on board, and that’s a work in progress.

In the wake of the Pelosi visit, Beijing cut three channels of dialogue and suspended cooperation in five other areas, including climate change. That came on top of already sharply curtailed contact between China and the United States.

If Biden and Xi can muster the political will, experts think the Bali meeting could realistically yield a commitment to opening more channels of communication.

“The problem with China is they don’t like to meet and exchange views – they just repeat talking points. Xi Jinping is not very creative in the way he interacts with his counterparts,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a professor of political science at Hong Kong Baptist University.

He believes there is a chance to take a little bit of a gamble because of the end of the Party Congress and the elections in the U.S.

Biden and Beijing are working together: guiding the G20 summit with a purpose: an open dialogue between the U.S. and China

Nobody should expect a lot from this summit. A sincere discussion may help deepen understanding between the two leaders, he says — but that’s it.

In the early-1960s, when distrust grew between the US and the Soviet Union, Medeiros was a U.S. official.

“After the Cuban Missile Crisis, both sides, because of that incredibly searing experience, internalized the belief that strategic restraint, often institutionalized through things like arms control agreements, was in their mutual interests,” he says.

Yu Jie, a senior research fellow on China at the London-based think tank Chatham House, says that given Biden’s “reasonable success” in the midterms, he is in a stronger position to steer Washington’s relationship with Beijing.

The two leaders decided to meet in Indonesia just before the G-20 summit. Their meeting was scheduled to start at 4:30 a.m. The White House said it was expected to last about two hours because of the Eastern time. Afterward, Biden is set to give remarks and take questions at 8:30 a.m. ET (9:30 p.m. local).

Biden, meanwhile, arrived in Asia following a better-than-expected performance by his party in the US midterm elections – with the Democrats projected to keep the Senate in a major victory. Asked Sunday whether the results allowed him to go into Monday’s face-to-face with a stronger hand, Biden voiced confidence. He told reporters that he was coming in stronger.

The stakes of their much-anticipated meeting are high. In a world reeling from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Covid-19 pandemic and the devastation of climate change, the two major powers need to work together more than ever to instill stability – instead of driving deeper tensions along geopolitical fault lines.

A senior White House official said Thursday Biden wants to use the talks to “build a floor” for the relationship – in other words, to prevent it from free falling into open conflict. The main objective of the sit-down is not about reaching agreements or deliverables – the two leaders will not release any joint statement afterward – but about gaining a better understanding of each other’s priorities and reducing misconceptions, according to the US official.

Jake Sullivan told reporters in Air Force One on Saturday that the meeting is unlikely to make much of a difference in the relationship.

The US and China need a fly on the wall to resolve the US-China relationship after a two-week trip to China last week

Kennedy was back from a week long visit to China where he said each side blames the other for the situation and both believe they are better off than the other.

The Chinese think they are winning, the Americans think they are winning, and so they are willing to pay for it. And they think the other side is very unlikely to make any significant changes,” Kennedy said. “All of those things reduce the likelihood of significant adjustments.”

The fact the two leaders are having a face-to-face conversation is positive according to experts. Keeping dialogue open is crucial for reducing risks of misunderstanding and miscalculations, especially when suspicions run deep and tensions run high.

I would love to be a fly on the wall to see that conversation, because I think the US and China have been a bit vague about what their red lines are. Kennedy of CSIS said he doesn’t believe that either side has an idea of what a positive reward the other side would get from staying within the red lines.

Now the two leaders are sitting down in the same room – a result of weeks of intensive discussions between the two sides – Taiwan is widely expected to top their agenda. But in a sign of the contentiousness of the issue, barbs have already been traded.

According to a transcript of the meeting that took place in China, the President said that China advocated a ceasefire, a stop to war and peace talks.

Experts in the US and China say some progress on greater communication and access between the two countries will already be considered a positive outcome – such as restoring suspended climate and military talks.

It was written off as a casual mischaracterization of American policy when President Joe Biden said that the United States would protect Taiwan if China moved on it.

Senior US administration officials said Biden would be “honest” in voicing his views on Taiwan when he meets Xi, a signal the conversation would not gloss over the two men’s deep disagreements.

Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, told reporters that Biden would have the opportunity to be straightforward and direct in his dealings with President XI.

The White House hopes the leaders “come out of that meeting with a better understanding and a way to responsibly manage this relationship and the competition,” Sullivan said.

Last year, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi put out three core demands — “bottom lines” — that China wanted the U.S. to agree to in order for relations to improve: to not get in the way in the country’s development, to respect China’s claims over places like Taiwan and to respect Beijing’s Communist Party rule.

“It’s more how we can find ways to communicate about those issues that we have deep differences of perspective or concerns, but we need to be having continuing and ongoing conversation,” the senior administration official told reporters before Biden met with the Chinese leader.

Thirty-seven minutes after wrapping up a late-night gala dinner with Asian leaders – punctuated by plates of wild Mekong lobster and beef saraman – an aide handed President Joe Biden the phone.

A man on the other end of the line was a millionaire wine retailer from Maryland who just won a second term in the House.

The call wasn’t long, a person familiar with it said, but reflected the warmth and enthusiasm Biden had deployed dozens of times in calls to winning candidates over the last week – each one further solidifying a midterm election that dramatically reshaped the prevailing view of his presidency.

Biden’s advisers say the election results had a significant effect on his standing because they could not match historical trends before the most consequential meeting of his first two years.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan provided a glimpse into dynamics of the moment, pointing to the fact “that many leaders took note of the results of the midterms, came up to the president to engage him and to say that they were following them closely.”

“I would say one theme that emerged over the course of the two days was the theme about the strength of American democracy and what this election said about American democracy,” Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One as Biden traveled from Phnom Penh to Bali, Indonesia, for the Group of 20 Summit.

The War Between Democracy and Autocracy: A Breakdown of the US-China Relationship in the Prelude to the U.S. Election

White House officials, even those who braced for losses in the weeks leading up to election day, have cast aside any reticence to take to their Twitter accounts or to TV interviews to call out pundits and politicians who predicted otherwise.

It reflects on the team that feels constantly underestimated and coveted success after a relentless and crisis-filled first 21 months in office.

White House officials had been circling the G-20 as the likely sit-down with Xi for months. The two sides prepared in advance of the announcement of the engagement. The tenuous state of the relationship necessitated a sit down, regardless of domestic politics.

White House advisers downplayed the effect of sweeping losses in the mid-terms on the Biden name and global influence in the run up to the election.

There was a possibility of a split screen in front of the US president and the Chinese president as they grappled with their party’s political defeats at the same time, said multiple people familiar with the matter.

One US official said, “perception matters and so does political standing.” We are well aware that everyone was watching the election around the world, but it was never a central focus or driver of the dynamics.

There is no doubt that each of the calls back home made by the president, underscores the drive at the back of a leader who entered the meeting with his counterpart knowing that the US-China relationship will likely get more strained over time.

“I know I’m stronger,” Biden said, before noting that given his long-standing relationship with Xi formed during their times as their nations’ vice president that the results weren’t a necessity for the meeting to achieve its goals. US officials are also careful not to overstate the effect on a trip – and in a region – where the layers of complexity and challenges far exceed what voters decide in a congressional district or swing state.

Yet Biden isn’t subtle about his sweeping view of the geopolitical stakes of a moment he’s repeatedly framed as a generational “inflection point,” centered on the battle between democracy and autocracy.

I found that they want to know if the United States is stable. Do we know what we’re about? Are we the same democracy we’ve always been?” Biden said at his post-election news conference as he described his conversations with world leaders.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/13/politics/midterms-joe-biden-xi-jinping-meeting/index.html

Validation in the Birth of Reality: The Journey of Donald Biden through his Troubles with the Senate and the House of Representatives to the G20 Summit

Donald Trump was the most powerful figure within the Republican Party, despite his lies driving the assault on the US Capitol.

Biden had managed the narrowest of Congress’s majority to pass a sweeping domestic agenda on a bipartisan basis. Yet he still held an approval rating in the low 40s, weighed down by four-decade high inflation and a population exhausted by years careening from crisis to crisis.

The possibility that Biden would face the same harsh judgment of his first two years in office as nearly all his recent predecessors wasn’t just likely. It would happen, it was expected.

Instead, as he moved through bilateral meetings and pull-asides, gala dinners and summit gatherings, Biden’s own political vindication served another purpose for his approach on the world stage: Validation.

Biden felt that it establishes a strong position for him on the international stage and I think that played out in living color today as the summit came to a close,” Sullivan told reporters. We will see that the same way when we head into the G20 and his bilateral engagements in Indonesia.

Nevada Rep. Dina Titus, who faced a tough reelection battle in a redrawn district, had secured another term in office. It was necessary for Biden to pass along his joy.

The Last Three Years: When the United States and China Reconnected: After G20, Indonesia, and G7, 2015 – Brief Report on US-China Relations

The US considers the summit in Indonesia important as it yielded two outcomes: a joint position that Russia should not use a nuke in Ukraine and an expected restart of talks between the US and China on climate change.

Biden, meanwhile, reported that he stressed to Xi that Beijing also has an obligation to temper North Korea’s destabilizing missile and nuclear activity that has the Pacific region on edge.

That the world’s two most powerful leaders had not been addressing these issues together in recent months shows how the entire world suffers when Washington and Beijing are as deeply estranged as they’ve been this year.

Leon Panetta – a former White House chief of staff, defense secretary and CIA chief who dealt with US-China relations for decades – expressed cautious optimism after the talks on the sidelines of the G20 summit.

The aim of both the US and China is incompatible and this was clear at the summit in Indonesia.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said neither side should try to change or subvert the other’s system.

Biden publicly told Xi that the US was ready to reengage in climate talks – at an opportune moment for the Egypt climate summit. After the discussions, the two leaders agreed to empower key senior officials to maintain communication and deepen their constructive efforts on climate change, macroeconomic stability, health security and global food security.

So, Washington’s foreign policy has come full circle, since part of Richard Nixon’s motivation in engaging China during the 1970s Cold War deep freeze was to open strategic gaps between Beijing and Moscow.

Things aren’t so different now, though the dynamic between the Kremlin and Beijing has reversed, with China the global power and Russia the junior partner.

Tech Leaders Meet in Beijing: Xi-Biden, Taiwan, and the Future of China-US Economic Cooperation and Cooperation

The State Department said that Secretary of State Antony Blinken will also visit China in person sometime early next year to follow up on the Xi-Biden meeting.

The world is big enough for China and the US to prosper together, according to a foreign ministry spokeswoman.

Some analysts say China appeared to be blindsided when Russia invaded Ukraine in February. Beijing has always called for a peaceful end to the war.

And while Biden came in to the G20 with a stronger position due to the narrow Democratic victory in the battle to control the Senate, he is up for reelection in two years himself.

The meeting could lay the groundwork for more ties between the global economic powerhouses. Technology giants, such as Alibaba and Tencent, were up on Tuesday in Hong Kong and mainland China.

Xi said in a statement the two countries should prevent “confrontation and conflict.” Both sides would continue discussions on the basis of common understandings already in place and “strive for early agreement,” he added.

Neil Thomas said that the goal of the meeting was to build a floor under the falling ties between Beijing and Washington.

The meeting was a positive indication that the two sides were willing to work out an agreement, according to Ken Cheung.

Hang Seng, Alibaba, Tencent, and Alibaba uplifted by the recent G20 summit and a no-go theorem of Turnbull

On Tuesday the Hang Seng (HSI) index was up 4%, and was on track to record a third straight day of gains. Since last Thursday the index has increased by over 7% and is boosted by the latest policy shift towards gradual reopening of borders and a rescue package for the property sector.

Chinese technology shares, which had been hammered by a regulatory crackdown at home and rising geopolitical tension abroad, led markets higher on Tuesday. Alibaba shares shot up by 11% in Hong Kong, followed by Tencent, which was up 10%.

The ING analysts said that there was much more progress than they had thought, and that it was more important than the G20 summit.

Scott Morrison, who was the leader of the two countries, had informal discussions with the Chinese leader at the G20 in Japan. But it has been six years since leaders from the two sides have held a formal bilateral meeting, after then Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s sit-down with Xi at the G20 in the Chinese city of Hangzhou in 2016.

In a statement after his meeting with Biden, China’s leader described his country’s governance system as “Chinese-style democracy,” in an apparent signal to the US that ideological differences shouldn’t become a divide in their relations with Beijing.

In a sign of Xi’s busy schedule, the Chinese leader and French President Emmanuel Macron squeezed in a meeting early on Tuesday, before both leaders showed up at the opening of the G20 summit.

The talks, which lasted for 43 minutes according to the French Presidency, saw Xi reiterate his support for a ceasefire and peace talks to end the war in Ukraine.

The French Presidency said the two leaders had a firm position on preventing nuclear weapons from being used in the conflict in Ukraine, but that line was missing from the Chinese one.

France, like other European countries, has hardened its position on China in recent years, increasingly viewing the country as a competitor and security concern.

For the majority of the Pandemic, he stayed in China rather than traveled overseas, opting instead for virtual summits and video conferences.

Few Australians think the meeting between Xi and Albanese can reconcile the countries’ strained relations.

China imposed tariffs on Australia in early 2020, after calling for an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, causing a diplomatic freeze on both countries.

The outcome of the summit of the OECD high-energy diplomacy summit in Australia will be decided in terms of bilateral trade and security

The meeting between the two men is a success, because there isn’t any dialogue at the top level for years, said Albanese.

He told reporters that there were no preconditions for the meeting, adding that it was not in Australia’s interest to not have dialogue with its major trading partners.

John Lee is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute think tank in Washington and a former national security adviser to the Australian government.

“It may be a diplomatic reset of some sorts but not one in substance where both sides begin to genuinely approach each other in good faith and a preparedness to compromise,” Lee added.